"I heard, without understanding. You've no idea what a state of mind I was in; I was more than half out of my wits. I don't remember a single word either of you said; you might have been talking in a foreign tongue. I didn't seem to hear your words then. You see, I didn't know who you were; I didn't even know who he was, except that he said he was my guardian; that I seemed wholly at his mercy; and that I was in mortal terror of him. All that you have said about my father, and mother, and everything is strange to me. In that room at 'The Bolton Arms' I was the most ignorant, helpless, friendless, miserable creature in the world!" "What had taken place between you?" "He wanted me to marry him; he had wanted to before. He said I should have to marry him, and it seemed to me I should, and I would rather have died." "You saw what took place, if you didn't hear?" "Oh yes, I saw; and--and----" "That was the worst?" "No, no; that is not what I was going to say; nor was that what I felt. I didn't know who you were; I didn't know what your quarrelling with him was about; yet, I felt that you were my friend." "By what instinct?" "I can hardly tell you; I suppose it was an instinct of self-preservation. You see, I was half paralysed with fear; all my remaining senses were bound up in the desire to escape from him--that was the only thing for which I cared--to escape." "Then you did not hear what was the actual provocation?" "No; I think I heard you say he was a thief; but I am not sure; even that may have been only in imagination." "I did say he was a thief. He was trying to steal your money; he had stolen you; he had stolen many things in his time; he was a thief many times over. But I said more than that." He paused; again his mouth was twisted by that whimsical smile. "All these things which I am saying to you I should not say--at least, in such a shape--were it not that, placed as I am, I must take the fullest advantage of the only opportunity which is ever likely to offer. You and I are meeting for the first time and the last; we shall never see each other again." "Why?" Again the pause, and the smile.